As part of “Telangana Ku Haritha Haram”, a flagship program of the State Government, in the coming three years 230 Crore Plants are proposed to be added to the greenery of Telangana.
Out of this 130 Crore seedlings will be planted outside forest areas (10 Crore within HMDA area + 120 Crore in rest of the area of the State). Another 100 Crore plants will be rejuvenated by intensive protection of the forests and from the existing root stock in the forest areas.
According to a press release issued by the Chief Minister’s Office on Monday, the program envisages increasing the tree cover of the State from present 25.16% to 33% of the total geographical area of the State. This objective is sought to be achieved by a multi-pronged approach of rejuvenating degraded forests, ensuring more effective protection of forests against smuggling, encroachment, fire, grazing and intensive soil and moisture conservation measures both inside and outside forest following the watershed approach. Apart from the above, major fillip is sought to be given to Social Forestry by taking up massive plantation activities outside Forest areas. The Greening efforts will be taken up involving all stakeholders.
The thrust areas to achieve above are twofold; one, Initiatives in forest areas and the other, Initiatives outside Forest areas.
In the forest area, activities like, Forest Protection, Afforestation, Rejuvenating degraded forests and Treatment of RoFR areas will be taken up. Conservation of biodiversity rich areas outside the Protected Area network would be encouraged with the active collaboration of all stakeholders including the Biodiversity Management Committees (BMCs). Modern methods of forest management would be adapted using the latest technological interventions like improved planting stock, GIS, MIS, Remote Sensing, DGPS, etc that are available so as to make forest management in Telangana state as a role model for the other states.
In the outside Forest area, Avenue Plantation, Barren Hill Afforestation, Institutional plantations, Homestead plantations, Agro forestry, Tank foreshore, Canal Bank, River Bank and Rivulets, Green Panchayats, Creation of Smrithi vanams, Planting in Urban Residential Colonies will be taken up.
To achieve the objectives envisaged under the “Telangana Ku Haritha Haram”” program and for taking up massive plantations during 2015 planting season, a detailed exercise for identification of nurseries and the sites available for raising plantations have been undertaken under “Mana Vooru Mana Pranalika” initiative of the Government.
Village wise, Mandal wise and District wise areas and nurseries have been identified. 3699 numbers of nurseries are identified for raising the adequate nursery stock by the various agencies involved (Forest Department, DWMA, Agriculture, Horticulture, Tribal Welfare etc.) for achieving the target of raising seedlings @ 40 Lakhs seedlings per Assembly Constituency. Further, necessary action is being taken by the different agencies for procurement of polythene bags and seeds for grounding the nurseries, the press release added. (INN)